


I could breathe you in

by surgicalstainless



Series: if I weren't miles away [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A little bit of gore, Angst, Epistolary, Lack of Communication, Letters, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve does not make good decisions, Therapy, getting better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2440826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surgicalstainless/pseuds/surgicalstainless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life <em>after</em> never seems to take the shape you think it will.<br/>Even once you think you've found a balance, things change, then change again.<br/>Steve is learning to lean on his friends.</p><p>(Steve writes Bucky letters. Bucky — <em>maybe</em> — writes him back.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I could breathe you in

**Author's Note:**

> This follows _immediately_ after the events of [I thought I caught your scent on the edge of the breeze just now](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1768822), and will not make much sense without reading that story first, I'm afraid.
> 
> ...
> 
>  **Warnings:** some alcohol consumption, a small amount of gore. If you think this might be a problem for you, there is a spoilery warning with more detail in the end notes. Please read with care.

The sill was empty when Steve got home.

He did a quick double take — yes, the letters were definitely not there.

His eyes flicked around the room, the old automatic scan for threats now done more carefully, to verify that no, there weren't loose letters and scattered pages littered on the floor.

He went to the window and carefully leaned out. The garden below was not festooned with wind-blown paper. There were, for good measure, no boot prints in the damp earth of the flower bed, either.

All else lay as it was. Nothing disturbed, nothing out of place. Just that one blank space on the windowsill where a bundle of letters tied with twine used to be. The net curtains even fluttered the same way they always had, nonchalant in the soft night breeze.

Because Steve did not know how he should react, because he did not know what he had been hoping for but this was _not it_ all the same, because he was for the moment wordless —

Steve went to bed.

____

Sam didn't say anything when Steve only lapped him twice on their run the next morning.

He quirked a suspicious eyebrow when Steve made coffee later without even pretending to be confused by the machine, but held his tongue.

Sam _almost_ said something when he came home from work that evening to find Steve in the exact same spot on the couch, sketchbooks and pencils strewn over all the cushions and a pen tucked behind each ear. 

He'd had a budget meeting that day, Sam had, and of course it had run long, and by the time it was over the cafeteria was all out of meatloaf. His schedule just got more and more behind no matter how much he rushed. It had been the kind of day when his patients broke down sobbing right out in the hall, and Sam couldn't decide whether to hug them or punch them or join in. So when he came home and saw that Captain America clearly hadn't moved from that exact spot since breakfast —

Sam very nearly said something.

Instead, he breathed in deeply through his nose, pressed his lips together, and dropped his keys in the bowl.

Steve glanced up at the sound, and the look he shot Sam over the back of the couch was guilty, tentative, apologetic. War heroes shouldn't look like that, Sam thought, but he saw it every day. He was suddenly glad he'd held his peace.

"You're back already? Wow, I must have really lost track of time."

"You been sitting there all day, man? I'm surprised you haven't fused to the couch. Are you hungry?"

Steve seemed surprised to discover he was. 

Sam watched as Steve cast around him for stray pencils and crumpled pieces of paper. He had that same apologetic air about him as he checked under seat cushions and lost a pen down the hood of his sweatshirt when he ran his hands through his hair. All the windows were open, but suddenly the room felt oppressive just the same. 

Sam flopped onto the couch next to Steve and threw his booted feet onto the coffee table. He resolutely did not flinch when he felt a pencil crunch somewhere beneath him.

"You want pizza? Feels like a pizza night to me." 

If Steve was even worse company than usual for their evening of pizza, beer, and sports highlights? Well, Sam did not say anything about that, either.

____

When Natasha came over two days later and beheld Steve washing the same dish for ten minutes straight, she did not say a word, though her expression spoke volumes.

Steve was wearing Sam's sweatpants and one of his old grandpa shirts. His hair stood up in a way that said "slept on it funny" rather than "artfully mussed," and he was barefoot.

Well, he wore one sock.

Sam crossed into Natasha's field of view and gave a tiny head-shake. 

She shot him a silent "WTF, Wilson?"

Sam shrugged, just one shoulder. The way that shoulder dropped, like a dead weight, said more than all the other not saying anything ever could.

Sam was patient, Sam was kind, but Natasha was Russian, or she used to be. She jerked her chin at Steve, and Sam gave her the "all yours" gesture. 

Or maybe it was "please don't shoot me." They looked about the same. 

Natasha moved until she stood about a foot behind Steve, who was now lovingly working on his second dish.

"Suit up, Rogers." She put a little steel into it. If Steve dropped his dish and the resulting splash got his shirt all wet — well, a girl had to get her fun somewhere.

Steve spun around, hands dripping, and seemed entirely surprised to see Natasha appraising him from mere inches away. She gave him her best "disdain" eyebrow. It's not like she'd been quiet coming in.

"Hit the showers, Rogers, and get some real clothes on. We're going bowling."

Both men looked vaguely horrified at that. Natasha decided to be generous. "That, or the roller-skating rink. Your choice."

Sam's face immediately transformed into a rictus of enthusiasm. 

"Bowling it is! Terrific! I'll get my coat." He fled into the living room, literally whistling a happy tune.

Sam must have had some _sarcastic_ drill sergeants, Natasha reflected.

Steve had, of course, not moved at all. Possibly he was still stuck on "roller-skating." Natasha stepped away from the encroaching puddle of dishwater and handed him a dishtowel. 

"All right there, Steve?" 

He looked — distracted. He was standing there in Sam's kitchen in a wet t-shirt (God bless America, etc, etc), but his eyes were miles away. He shook himself, smiled at her, and set the towel down without really drying his hands.

"Showers. Right. Uh, give me a minute."

Natasha joined Sam in the living room to wait. If the couch made a sound like crumpling paper as she sat down, they both forebore to mention it.

____

Bowling, Sam and Steve agreed, must never be spoken of again.

Notwithstanding, it had been a fun evening. Steve spent a moment trying to pin down "haven't had such a good time since —" and then decided discretion was the better part of valor. He had good friends. Nobody had been arrested, his cat scratches were already healed, and Sam said he hadn't liked that shirt anyway. Steve was still smiling when he stepped into his room after wishing Sam and Nat goodnight.

There was something on the windowsill.

It wasn't large, whatever it was; just enough to disrupt the expected silhouettes of desk within and garden without. Steve froze, his smile dying forgotten, and scanned his environment. Nothing else was different. Everything seemed the same.

He took a few steps closer and flicked the desk lamp on. In the pool of yellow light, he could see that the thing on the windowsill was a piece of paper, or perhaps a card, pinned to the wood with a small throwing knife.

Steve reached out and touched the knife's hilt, just barely, with the tips of his fingers. He brushed over a corner of the card and down one edge, found it strangely crenelated. A ticket stub, then.

With a gentle tug, Steve pulled knife and ticket free, and gave a moment to touch the small scar left in the white paint of the sill. Then, when he could delay no longer, he turned the ticket over in his palm to read the words there.

THE NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM  
presents  
CAPTAIN AMERICA  
The Living Legend & Symbol of Courage

It was dated a few days previous. Senior citizen discount.

Steve ran his fingers over the cardstock, turned it over in his hand and then over again. There was a hole through "presents" where the blade had been, but that was it. No other marks, nothing written on it. The ticket felt a little worn, partway to soft, as if it had been carried in a pocket for a while.

Steve held it in his hand for a long, long time.

The house quieted around him, sounds of nighttime routine giving way to the subtle shifts and sighs of a world at rest. Eventually, it occurred to Steve that he shouldn't just stand there all night. He tucked the ticket and the knife (matte black, razor-sharp, no marks at all, not even of wear) into the drawer of his nightstand, under his sketchbook, and sat down on the bed. It was time to ponder actions and reactions.

Of all the possible messages a ticket stub with a knife through it could send, Steve could really only believe one: it felt like a _reply_. 

So what do you do when someone replies to your letter? That, at least, was simple. Steve reached for a pad and a pen.

> _Dear Bucky,_
> 
> _I received your last, though I'm not really sure what to think about it. Did you like the exhibit? Did you find any answers there? It was pretty weird for me, like being present for your own eulogy. I'm not that hero, not really. It was always more complicated than red, white, and blue._
> 
> _Did you see that clip they had of us laughing together? I remember that — hadn't known they were filming, though. We were just standing around waiting for the lighting or something and I think I surprised you with a dirty joke. It was so good to see you smile, Buck. You almost never did, not after Azzano, always these shadows lurking in your eyes. I'm so glad the camera caught you laughing..._  
> 

____

Morning felt like the start of something new.

Contrary to expectations, Steve was not naturally a morning person. He _could_ be, if mission parameters required it, or if the day just seemed especially promising. _This_ felt like an especially good example of both.

It was obvious from the line of Sam's shoulders that he wasn't ready to be awake yet. His head hung over his cereal bowl, and he plucked at his spoon as if it were too heavy to lift. Whatever the day was promising Sam seemed to be full of misery and dread. Steve clapped him on the back as he passed. 

Sam gave a combination start/full-body wince. Steve ignored the subsequent bleary glare and bustled over to the coffeepot.

"You're up early this morning, Sam. Figured after a night like that you'd sleep in some. Still, old habits die hard, huh?" Steve turned to bask in Sam's glare, which had not abated at all, and gave him a cheerful grin in response. "You mind helping me with the coffeemaker again, here? I never can figure out which button to press."

Sam's glare and Steve's grin both went up to eleven.

Natasha materialized from the vicinity of the bathroom, looking completely perfect but moving with more than her usual care. She took in the scene, her head turning slowly, and pulled out the chair next to Sam. Her expression remained completely neutral, but Steve suddenly remembered how to make coffee again, all the same.

Because Steve was not heartless, he set about cooking breakfast while the coffee was brewing. Fried eggs and bacon weren't that hard to manage. If the pans and plates clattered a little louder than strictly necessary — well, nobody said anything at all.

____

Days passed.

They passed in the kind of occupations that felt normal, should have been normal, if that were something Steve knew anything about. He cooked and cleaned, went running with Sam and sparred with Natasha. He sketched, and spent some time setting up a little kitchen garden in some of Sam's window-boxes. And every day, he wrote a letter.

It was habit, after all. These letters were a little more formal, now that he ~~knew~~ thought they would be read, but he was still writing to Bucky. Or whoever it was that wore his face.

He tried to be helpful:

> _Are you hungry? Do you need anything— clothes, shoes, medicine? You know you can always come here, Buck, or let me know and I'll leave you whatever you need. But if you can't, Sam mentioned a shelter over by the VA that could probably help you out. They're used to dealing with returned soldiers, and they wouldn't ask questions. You could go there if you needed..._  
> 

He tried to strike a pleasant tone, to offer some kind of normalcy, to be a kind of shoulder for Bucky to lean on.

> _You know, it took some adjustment, Buck, but the future's really pretty neat. No flying cars yet — remember Stark at the fair before you shipped out? — but the internet is something else. It's like a library and a store and a giant rabbit-hole of cat videos, all in one. It's how I did a lot of my catching up._  
> 

Even as the words left his pen, though, they felt false. Steve knew from false cheer. He'd spent enough of his life in sickbeds to know the kind of tone someone took everything wasn't going to be all right. Enough of that, then. Steve looked at all the pages scattered around him and imagined them as armor, loops of ink knitted into chainmail, impervious.

He took a deep breath, and started again.

> _Nat and Sam are starting to wonder why I'm not looking for you. They haven't said anything outright, but all I do is write letters all day and they're giving each other these looks when they think I can't see. In the hospital I was burning up to find you, Buck, and then I got out and there was no good place to start and I was tired, like I was still underwater somehow... Can you forgive me? I don't know that I can. I don't know that I have any choice._  
> 

Natasha began to bring by dossiers, old yellowing files in Cyrillic type.

"Pulled some more strings," she said as she slapped the first of them down by Steve's breakfast cereal.

The _time to get moving, Rogers_ was implicit. Natasha may not want Steve chasing hurt and disappointment, but it seemed that would be better than chasing his own tail.

Steve mustered up his best grateful smile. "Thanks, Natasha. I really appreciate it." He flattened his hand over the string clasp, though, and did not unwind it. The file stayed there, lurking under his fingers, all through breakfast. Maybe it was his imagination, but it made the cereal taste a little sour.

Later, when Natasha had gone, Steve put the unopened file in his nightstand, in the drawer with the ticket and the knife. They fit together, Steve thought, fractured parts of the same nightmare.

____

The letters didn't disappear every time. Each completed letter was left on the windowsill, under Sam's red stapler so it didn't blow away in the breeze that made the curtains shift. Steve would go out — for a run, for groceries, for a night out with Sam — and more often than not when he got back the letter would still be there. No matter. He just added the new ones in with the old. Eventually, the stack vanished.

The stapler, too.

Steve had a brief moment, when he realized its absence, torn between chagrin at the loss of Sam's possession and wondering what kind of message a stapler could possibly send to an amnesiac assassin. He made a note to check the headlines for office-supply-related crimes.

> _I dream about falling a lot. I dream about **you** falling, of course, always, over and over again you fall in my nightmares — but I fall, too, even in regular dreams. I'm always falling. Once upon a time you'd have yelled at me for the frequency with which I jump out of planes or off bridges or out of buildings, but you ain't here, so..._  
> 
> 
> _Those first few seconds of freefall, Buck, when it feels like your heart's been left behind and your lungs are pressed tight with sudden speed —_
> 
> _A part of me feels like that all the time. A part of me thinks that those first few seconds are the only time I feel anything at all._

Steve was sitting on the couch, woolgathering, one afternoon when Sam lobbed a large orange ball at his head. Steve caught it by pure reflex, not even really looking, and shot Sam a frown in return. "Aren't there rules against throwing balls indoors?"

Sam scoffed. "Super soldier ain't gonna miss. Although, if you had, that would have been hilarious. Come on, we're going to shoot some hoops."

Steve looked down at the ball in his hands. It was pebbled, the surface a little sticky like rubber. It was too large for him to pick up with just one hand, and it gave very slightly when he flexed his fingers. Sam was a basketball fan, Steve was learning. They'd watched some games together, the players frenetic on their polished court, Sam almost as animated on the couch beside him.

"I don't — I never played."

"Come on, man, I _know_ basketball was around back in your day."

"Maybe so, but it's changed a lot. Also — baseball fan. It's not like I was in any shape to be playing sports back then anyway, but when I could, it was sandlot _baseball._ "

Sam rolled his eyes, marched over to Steve and snatched his ball back. "If you don't think you can handle it..." he called, on his way out the door.

Steve snorted at the obvious bait, but rose to it anyway.

Basketball turned out to be pretty fun. Once Sam explained the rules and they got moving, it was easy to get into a groove. Like no-contact sparring, or close-quarters strategy, or like dancing, if he'd ever gotten the hang of that. And a bouncing ball wasn't that much different from a ricocheting shield. Sam kept on him, kept him moving, kept up an endless stream of trash-talking and taunts. For a little while, Steve let himself forget everything outside their sunbaked half-court.

Sunset found Sam and Steve sprawled companionably near the free-throw line, panting and sweating and staring at the first pinprick stars. Steve had the ball; he lobbed it gently at Sam's gut. "Need a medic?"

"Man, shut up."

> _Did you know Peggy's still alive? She's real frail, lives in a nursing home not far from here. I go to visit her once a week or so._
> 
> _She had a pretty great life, you won't be surprised at all to hear. Went on after the war and did all the big things we always thought she would. Founded SHIELD, had a nice family. I worked with her niece for a little while, right before you showed up._
> 
> _I used to really love bantering with Peg, back when I first met her. She was so sharp and funny, the next best thing to talking with you. But her memory's going, now. She doesn't always know me, and when she does... It's like trying to shout across light years. The messages lose their meaning. I'm afraid there's just too much time and space between us now._  
> 

____

Steve was getting ready for his morning run when he saw the thing on his windowsill.

How he'd missed it before, in the untangling of sheets and the shuffle to the bathroom, he couldn't say. Still lost in a dream, maybe — fading now, but something urgent, something about pushing through crowds of strangers and a deadline to meet. But when his eyes slid to the window at last, as they inexorably did, there it was.

A stuffed bear.

It was leaned nonchalantly against the edge of the frame, as if waiting for him to wake up. It was brown felt, and wore a blue suit with red collar, buttons and nose. A black harlequin mask covered its eyes. It looked at once pristine and slightly faded, as if it had been carefully kept for a very long time. When Steve reached out to pick it up, he found the bear lighter than he'd expected, small in his hands. A little puff of dust rose from the fabric as he closed his fingers around it. Pale glass eyes glinted in the early morning light.

Steve checked the bear over carefully, and then the sill where it had been sitting, and then the garden bed outside. Nothing, again, no clues. No note to say why Steve might need a small, fierce bear in a boldly-colored suit. He set it on his bed against the pillows, where a bear was supposed to go, and then went and ran until he had to stop.

> _Hey, Buck, thanks for the bear. I never had a stuffed animal before. He's pretty good company. Listens to all my dumb ideas without scoffing, holds still when I want to draw him, doesn't hog the covers at night. So, nothing like you._
> 
> _...kidding, Buck. That was a joke._  
> 

The bear was a comfort, though, Steve was surprised to admit. The thought that Bucky had been the one to touch it last, that he'd chosen this elderly and forgotten creature to leave for Steve to find — well, Steve fell in love with it a little by proxy, and didn't say anything about it to the others.

It was under the bear's watchful gaze Steve first felt brave enough to pull out the files Natasha had found. As was traditional for reading horror stories, he locked the door, turned on all the lamps, and sat down with the files in the bright sunlight, hoping that could chase the evil away. The string fastening was stiff and brittle under his fingers, as if it had not been unwound for many years, and loath to give up its secrets.

Inside, the papers too felt old and long-forgot. Page after page of notes in typewritten Cyrillic, annotated by hand in several different shades of ink. Steve brushed his fingertips over the words, felt the impressions left there by hammer and pen, but could not read their meaning. Occasionally a photograph would be attached, by means of rusting paperclip or staple. These at least Steve could understand, though he wished he couldn't. They were of Bucky: Bucky blank-eyed, Bucky screaming and bloody, Bucky strapped down, laid open, covered in wires. Bucky frosted, behind glass.

The pages scattered, fluttering, and Steve realized his hands were shaking. Just outside, birds were singing, and somewhere close by children laughed as they played with a yapping dog. The sounds seemed _obscene_ in counterpoint to the atrocities in the file. Steve put his hands over his ears, pressed hard, until all he could hear was his own harsh breaths and the thunder of his heart.

To the back of the file were several pages in English, Steve eventually discovered. They were also typewritten, though they did not look quite as old as the rest of the file, and the English was stilted. It was quickly apparent that they weren't translation, as such, but more like an _instruction manual_ , a brief how-to guide for foreign buyers. With growing horror, Steve read about equipment maintenance, temperature and energy settings, operating parameters for maximum efficiency. There were no names, no mentions of human consideration. Were it not for the pictures and the diagrams, Steve thought, you could forget there was a person there at all.

He very carefully gathered up every last page and replaced them in the file, refastened the string.

With close control, he replaced the file in its drawer, pulled his shoes on, went out, relocked the door behind him.

He ran until he found a boxing gym, left his wallet with the startled receptionist, and then did the best he could to punch his knuckles bloody.

When Natasha found him, hours later, the punching bags were all split and his knuckles were still perfect, and it hadn't fixed anything. She gave him two bottles of water and a look full of sympathy, and took his arm, took him home.

Neither of them said a single word.

____

> _It's just so unfair, Buck. When you fell I swore I'd make HYDRA pay, that I'd wipe them from the earth, and when I took the plane down I thought I'd at least succeeded in that. Turns out I failed you twice over, though._
> 
> _Natasha found some files. What they did to you — I'm so full of hate and rage right now, I could sink into a bloody red haze and never come out. And the ones who did this to you, they're mostly dead already, and that almost makes it worse, because there's no one to strike at. What they did to you —_
> 
> _I'm so sorry, Bucky. It wasn't your fault. None of it was your fault. I'm so angry. I don't know what to do now._  
> 

Natasha helped him with the files, after that. She translated the Russian aloud (and, Steve suspected, censored the worst as she went), explained some of the terms. She was familiar with the mind-wipe process, she said, but did not offer why, and Steve did not ask.

Sam made gallons of coffee, and insisted they take breaks, and made sure they were fed. The atmosphere was grim, the information in the files unrelentingly awful. There were lists in there, of names: of targets, of collateral damage. There was a timeline, events clustered together and then widely spaced. There were schematics and surgery reports. _Voltage guidelines_.

Late into one such session, Natasha abruptly sighed and got up to pull a large bottle from Sam's freezer. Sam made a surprised noise, and Natasha ignored him as she rummaged for glasses.

"Vodka? Really, Nat?"

She gave him a humorless smirk. "It seemed appropriate." Three glasses landed on the table, and she poured a generous measure into each.

"I appreciate the sentiment, Natasha," Steve put in, "but you know that stuff doesn't work on me." Not for the first time, he really wished it did.

"Drink anyway. Placebo effect, or something. It'll help." She gave him a long, appraising look, then tripled the amount in his glass. "Drink extra."

So he did. The chill and the burn were bracing, anyway, the sensations so immediate they dragged Steve's mind out of the files for a moment or two. The three of them sat around Sam's kitchen table, slumped over cold vodka and yellowed paperwork, and drank in silence.

Sam was the first to break.

"You know, this is helpful information, but it's all _old_. None of it is going to help us find him _now_. Where are we even going to start looking?"

"I've been watching the news sources," Natasha volunteered, without looking up. "No suspicious deaths, no explosions or acts of "terrorism," nothing. He's smart. We're not going to find him without some kind of lead.

"I can have Stark help, put JARVIS on checking security feeds for facial recognition, but it would help if we could narrow it down even a little. Steve, where would he go?"

Steve shrugged, then took a large drink. "I don't know how much he remembers. I don't know how much _him_ is him. Brooklyn?" He felt guilt squirming in his gut at the words, was glad the others weren't looking up as he spoke. He could just _tell them_ , show the knife and the ticket and the bear, his new uncollected letters, and yet...

Not yet. He closed his mouth, pressed his lips together. Natasha topped off his glass.

"I'll call Stark in the morning, then, have him keep an eye on Brooklyn. I have some other contacts looking, too. If he makes a move, we'll hear it eventually."

Sam raised his glass in a silent toast. Together they finished off the bottle, for all the good it did.

____

Natasha walked Steve back to his room, leaning on his arm slightly. For company or balance, Steve wouldn't be able to tell; she was humming under her breath, but she knew she didn't seem any worse for wear. Certainly when Steve pushed the door open she noticed it first: something on the windowsill.

Her posture stiffened immediately, and she crouched to get out of a potential line of fire. Her eyes were scanning for anomalies even as she slithered for the scant cover of Steve's bed.

Two anomalies. Something strange on the windowsill. And Steve, standing unconcerned in the doorway, his shape framed in the light of the hall for any idiot with a gun to target. Even as she watched, he walked toward the window and looked out. She swore at him, viciously, in several languages, but he paid her no heed. Instead, he reached down and picked up whatever it was.

Natasha stood and moved carefully to join him. Steve was not _generally_ too stupid to live, so she wanted to see what he had found, and to hear what he had in the way of explanation. In the spill of nearby streetlights, she saw he held something small and white in the palm of his hand. As she watched, Steve peeled back a layer and —

They both took a sharp breath, simultaneously. Then Natasha reached up and grabbed Steve by his ear, dragged him back out to Sam in the kitchen. Steve didn't offer a word in protest.

"What — ?" Sam squawked, at their sudden reappearance. 

In answer, Natasha removed her fingernails from Steve's ear and moved them to his wrist, placing Steve's hand on the table to display its tiny burden. The pool of light over the table revealed this to be several stacked squares of gauze, four inches by four inches, mostly white and slightly mussed in appearance.

"What?" Sam said again.

"Show him," Natasha commanded around clenched teeth.

Gingerly, Steve peeled the top layer of gauze back. It was reluctant to move, as if it were stuck to something. Below, a shape appeared, curved and ragged, pink and red and black.

Oh. _Oh_.

"Why," Sam asked, in a very measured tone of voice, "is there a disembodied human ear on my kitchen table?"

On closer inspection, the ear in question was badly burned, its outer shell crisped and charred. The ear glistened in the kitchen lights, and in its crevices they could see that some kind of white ointment had been recently applied. The bottom layer of gauze was stained pink and yellow, and with a little halo of blood beneath the severed edge. The cut had been a clean one, very close to the skull. It was a left ear, Natasha noted.

She leaned closer. "Whoever's ear this was, they were alive when it came off."

Steve cleared his throat, abashed. "Bucky's... Ah, Bucky's been sending me letters."

She looked up at him for a long moment, her face unreadable. "So, probably not _still_ alive then."

Sam straightened up from his own inspection. "Depending on the extent of the burns, it may have been a moot point. Also, Steve, _what the fuck_?!? Bucky's been sending you _letters_?"

"Now might be a good time to explain, Captain," Natasha said, sitting down. " _Everything_."

So Steve did. The woman at the VA, her suggestion that he write a letter, that first letter that turned into dozens more, the stack that disappeared; then Bucky's "replies," the strange correspondence that came to be. He got up and fetched the knife and the ticket and the bear (Sam and Natasha both raised their eyes incredulously at the bear, but did not interrupt). He confessed to Sam about the mark on the windowsill and his missing stapler. He showed them his latest letters, waiting for Bucky to collect them. And all the while, the ear lay on the table between them, a strange and gruesome centerpiece.

When Steve finished talking, there was a moment of silence as the three of them sat back to take it all in. Then Natasha went back to the freezer, and pulled out a second bottle of vodka. Sam brought the three glasses back from the draining board. Steve hunched down and waited for judgement.

Once Sam had knocked back his first mouthful, he broke the silence. "Okay. First thing. We are not staying here tonight."

"I know somewhere we can go," Natasha offered.

"Second thing. Tomorrow morning, Steve Rogers, we are getting your ass into therapy."

"Third thing," Natasha continued, "I am calling Stark and asking him to find out whose _ear_ this is."

"Shouldn't be hard," Sam pointed out. "There are only so many burn units in DC. Someone will have noticed a patient lost an ear and then probably died."

"I don't think he's dangerous," Steve said, in a small voice.

Sam and Natasha turned to him wearing identical "are you fucking kidding me" expressions.

"To _us_ ," Steve amended. "I don't think he's a danger to us. I mean, he left the ticket weeks ago, and my window's always open, and we're all still alive."

" _Much_ too stupid to live," Natasha muttered.

"About that," Sam said, with exaggerated patience. "A mentally unstable HYDRA assassin who has _personally_ tried to kill all three of us left you a note with a _throwing knife_ , in my home, and you didn't think to mention it? No "oh hey Sam, the Winter Soldier knows where we live?" No "by the way, the guy who threw you off a helicarrier is my _pen pal_ now?" _Nothing_?"

"When you put it like that," Steve muttered.

" _Therapy_ ," Sam insisted. "And we are definitely going to talk more about this later, when there is less vodka, and less anger, and less —" he waved his arm in the direction of the centerpiece, "ear."

Natasha stood up, and found a plastic container. "The ear has DNA evidence. It's coming with us." Sam groaned. "So's the vodka. Get up, get your crap, Steve's driving."

Five minutes later they were gone.

> _Hey Buck, my friends found out about our letters. They're pretty mad. I guess I don't blame them. They don't think it's safe here, so we're moving someplace else for a while. I'm okay, and I'll be back soon._
> 
> _I promise._  
> 

____

The next morning Steve was ushered into an office not far from Sam's at the VA. Sam and Dr Rodrigues had a brief conversation in the hall (Steve pretended not to hear, because he was a _polite_ supersoldier, but — "I owe you _big time_ for this one," and the doctor's gentle little laugh), and then Sam left him in the doctor's custody.

"Talk. To. Her," were his parting words.

The door closed, leaving them in silence. Dr Rodrigues settled into her wing chair, and raised an eyebrow in Steve's direction.

Steve took a deep breath. "Well, doctor, I took your advice..."

____

They reconvened in the courtyard for lunch. Steve got there first, spent a few minutes just sitting, bringing all the pieces of him safely back inside his skin. Dr Rodrigues had a gentle touch and x-ray vision, and Steve had never felt so exposed. Their session left him shaky, out of balance, a little giddy with relief.

Not a moment too soon, Sam flopped onto the bench beside him, and Natasha gracefully sat herself on his other side. Before either of them could get started, Steve turned to Sam.

"Sam — thanks."

Sam looked surprised. Probably he'd been expecting more resistance, Steve thought.

"Of course, man. No problem." Sam shifted his shoulders, visibly changing mental tack. "Nat, got anything?"

"Stark reports, courtesy of JARVIS, that last night a badly burned John Doe "succumbed to his injuries" in an intensive care unit downtown."

Steve winced, and Sam hissed out a breath in sympathy.

"JARVIS added that tissue analysis identifies the victim as one Brock Rumlow."

Sam sat back on the bench. "Oh. Well..."

Steve nodded thoughtfully.

Natasha ghosted a smile, and her eyes went faraway for a moment. "Kinda sweet of him." In the next second, her gaze turned sharp. "You lied to us."

Steve squared his shoulders, met Sam's and Natasha's eyes in turn. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Seems like there have been an awful lot of lies of omission," Sam said. "That has to stop. From all of us."

Steve nodded his agreement, and, to his surprise, so did Natasha.

"So, what now?" Steve asked.

"What did the doc tell you? She want you to come back?"

"Every day, at least for a little while. She has a free hour in the mornings where she can fit me in. And then — I thought I'd see if the physical therapy department could use a volunteer?"

"Good. That's good. You could use something to do. Nat?"

Natasha reclined, boneless as it was possible to be on a hard park bench. "Don't look at me. I'm on vacation."

Sam looked vaguely horrified. "Is the world ready for that?"

She smirked at him. "We should be okay to stay where we are for a while. You boys do your thing. I'll go shopping, have some lunch dates, work on my new covers. If I cause trouble" — the smirk intensified — "you'll never hear a word about it."

Sam rubbed a hand over his face and muttered something that sounded like "that's what I'm afraid of."

____

They settled into some kind of routine in Natasha's safehouse. Closer quarters and security concerns and the odd domesticity of it all made the old dynamic new again — rubbing elbows, rubbing rough edges, hitting the occasional nerve. It was a cosy house in an unassuming suburb. Flowers grew out front, and family portraits hung on most walls. Steve couldn't decide if the smiling people in them were real, enjoying a vacation somewhere ordinary, unaware of the squatters in their house, or if that was what he was supposed to think. The cupboards and pantries were all stocked, right down to the junk drawer full of crap, but the clothes hanging in the master bedroom were all Natasha's size. The more Steve thought on in, the more uneasy he got. He decided to trust, instead.

Sam and Steve shared a ride into the VA on weekdays. Dr Rodrigues listened while Steve filled the room with ghosts, did her best to help him lay them back to rest. The physical therapy folks called him "Steve" and put him to work, supporting unsteady veterans with his super-strength and hard-fought patience. Sam met him for lunch. It felt like — maybe not progress, not yet, but heading that way. Steve thought maybe he'd found a road he could follow for some time.

Except, every once in a while, that old itch rose on the back of his neck. It felt like eyes from a high hide, like the unseen brush of crosshairs settling. Steve tried not to look, but sometimes a flash of metal caught the corner of his eye, or an unexpected silhouette. He wanted to be wrong. He did not think he was.

"I've gotta go leave Bucky another letter," he told Sam one lunchtime, over cold sesame noodles in waxed cardboard boxes.

Sam waited until he was done chewing, but his face said it all: shock, anger, disappointment. "I thought you knew better by now, man."

"We've been gone for days. You don't think he's going to come looking? We don't know what his state of mind is like. You've said it all before — _unstable, traumatized, violent_ — what conclusion do you think he'll draw if I'm just _gone_?"

"Shit."

"I should at least leave him an explanation, reassure him we're all okay."

"We're coming with you."

Steve smiled at Sam, honest and uncomplicated. "You can water the plants while you're there."

> _Hey, Bucky,_
> 
> _Sorry it's been a while. We scared my friends a little. They're more comfortable staying somewhere else for the time being, and that's okay with me. I want them to feel safe. You don't mind giving us some space?_
> 
> _Sam found me someone to talk to. She's real smart, a good listener, and she's helping. It was her idea that I write you these letters in the first place, did you know that? I've got a lot of stuff to process, she says, but I'm slowly getting there. She also says it's not fair of me to lean on you with all my problems, when you could probably use someone to talk to yourself. So I'm cutting back on the letters, for now._
> 
> _That doesn't mean I'm not thinking of you, though, Buck. I'm always thinking of you, **always** , even back when we were kids, even when you were gone off to war, even after I found you in Italy and you couldn't hardly look me in the eye. You're on my mind and in my heart and on the tip of my tongue every day, Buck, and if you're ever ready to come back I'll have so many things I'll want to say. _
> 
> _But I want to be better, and part of that's so you can lean on me if you ever want to. So no more letters, for a little while. Please take care of yourself, too._  
> 

____

Natasha swept the building, and found it undisturbed.

Sam watered the plants, and found them not as thirsty as he'd been expecting.

Steve left the letter, and felt a little lighter for it. Like he'd lost some of the weight he'd been carrying.

Time passed, a month or two. The road wasn't exactly smooth, but they moved on down it together. 

And they talked about all of it.

____

Steve let himself back into Sam's place for the weekly security sweep/plant watering. It was routine, by now, the dust beginning to accumulate and the air growing stale. Natasha hadn't even bothered to come in this time, her sleek Corvette growling idly at the curb. Sam was meeting them later for dinner; he'd had something come up. So it was that Steve alone turned the key in the lock, paced from room to room like a fraudulent ghost.

The air still smelled like _home_ , he was surprised to note. Scented candles, a hint of pizza, Nat's shampoo — it lingered faintly, after all these months. Steve tended the plants, checked the windows, wondered when they'd get to come back.

He didn't have a letter to leave, not since that last one, but checking the windowsill was habit by now. And like some guilty pleasure, Steve had left it for last. He cracked the door of his old room...

The window was open, that was the first thing he noticed. Nothing else was amiss, and the curtains drifted casually in the light fall breeze, so ordinary. There was nothing on the windowsill.

No, that was wrong. There was — _less than nothing_ on the windowsill. The sun was sinking, and the angle of the late afternoon light fell golden on the wood, pooled in hollows where there hadn't been any before. It was a handprint in faint counter-relief, fingers pointed inward as if someone had vaulted in through the window.

Steve gasped. It was an automatic quick breath of surprise, but it filled his lungs and lit up dusty old centers of his brain like fireworks, the smell, the _smell_. If Sam's place smelled like home, then this room — 

Empires rose and fell, Steve was sure, in the time it took him to turn. His bones were suddenly ancient, his joints claiming every one of his calendar years. His eyes felt dim and rheumy, just when he needed them most, but _yes_ , there was a shadow in the corner that was deeper than it should be. A bulky shape, broad shoulders, a fall of black hair. Darkness slanted across its face like a harlequin mask, and then the shape shifted. Eyes glinted, white and startlingly blue.

Steve opened his mouth, to say — what? All his words were vanishing, lost in ink and air...

Bucky was ready, though. His lips parted, curled, just a tiny bit.

"Hey, Steve."

**Author's Note:**

> ...
> 
>  **Spoilery warning:** Bucky sends Steve a "letter" in the form of Brock Rumlow's severed ear. It is briefly described; if you skip the paragraph or so after Sam asks why there is an ear in his kitchen, you should miss the worst of it. 
> 
> (If you think I've missed something I should have warned for, or have a suggestion as to how I can do better, please let me know!)
> 
> ...
> 
> As always, you are heartily encouraged to come visit me on [tumblr](http://z-delenda-est.tumblr.com). I have no idea what I'm doing, but more friends are always better. And I really like prompts.


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